1 Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is not tiresome to me, and for you it is safe.
2 Look out for the dogs, look out for the workers of evil, look out for the mutilation!
3 For we are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh,
4 though I myself have confidence in the flesh as well. If anyone else thinks he has grounds for confidence in the flesh, I have more:
5 circumcised the eighth day, of the race of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee;
6 as to zeal, persecuting the church; as to the righteousness that is in the law, blameless.
7 But whatever things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ.
8 Yes indeed, and I count all things to be loss because of the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as refuse, so that I may win Christ
9 and be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith;
10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,
11 if by any means I may attain to the resurrection of the dead.
12 Not that I have already obtained it, or am already made perfect; but I press on, if indeed I may lay hold of that for which I was also laid hold of by Christ Jesus.
13 Brothers, I do not count myself to have laid hold of it; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead,
14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.
15 As many, then, as are mature, let us be of this mind; and if you think otherwise in anything, this too God will reveal to you.
16 Nevertheless, to whatever point we have attained, let us walk by the same rule, let us be of the same mind.
17 Brothers, join in imitating me, and note those who walk in this way, as you have us for a pattern.
18 For many walk, of whom I often told you and now tell you even weeping, who are the enemies of the cross of Christ:
19 whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.
20 For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who will change the body of our humiliation so that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working by which he is able even to subject all things to himself.